The idea of America as a "refuge for the oppressed
of all the world" (203) has its origins in New England, where Puritans
and Quakers sought freedom from religious oppression--an astonishing oversight
in Smith's argument. England routinely shipped prisoners and other undesirables
(the poor and unemployed) to the New World, which gave them a second chance
and relieved the social pressures at home.

Europe saw frontier America as a refuge and safety valve
from the beginning; Americans of the 19th century simply pushed this element
of their European heritage to the new frontier west of the Alleghenies.
The myth of the garden played an important role in the settlement of the
West, but its role began with Columbus. Henry Nash Smith's development
of the role of the myth of the garden is enriched by an examination of
the myth's European roots.